Your future, our focus
Losses To Salt Lake CC And Snow College
It’s been a slow start for the Northwest College women’s soccer team, which opened the 2018 season with a pair of road losses to Salt Lake Community College and Snow College over the weekend.
“It was actually a great experience to go and see the teams that we played,” said NWC head coach Bobby Peters. “We played two of the top teams in the country for women’s junior college soccer. Losing is never fun, but it showed us our weaknesses and what we need to work on moving forward. That’s why we have to play those teams.”
“I expect the Lady Trappers to one day be one of those programs, up near the top,” he added, “so it’s good to see that level of competition.”
The Lady Trappers opened the season Friday in Salt Lake City, losing to the Lady Bruins 5-0.
“Salt Lake was a pretty solid team. They had about 15 players that could step on the field without missing a beat,” Peters said. “They were a heavy attacking team, and they knew how to work the ball. It really challenged us.”
Peters said the Lady Trappers played deep against their opponents, basically ceding the middle of the field to Salt Lake for most of the match. Peters added that the team may have been worried about the Lady Bruins’ aggressiveness, accounting for the cushion in the middle of the pitch.
“Someone mentioned that the team reverted to the way they played last year, and I told them, ‘You know, we gotta get past that,’” Peters said. “We have to move on and really focus on what we’re doing this year. We have the talent, and we could have played that team a lot tougher. That’s a team where, with our athleticism, and if we start clicking, we could have given them a run for their money.”
Against defending Region 18 champion Snow College, a team that went 17-1-1 a season ago, the Lady Trappers lost 12-0, though Peters said he thought the team had played a better brand of soccer than the day before.
“I was much happier, to be honest,” Peters said. “Though I was unhappy with the last 20 minutes. We kind of gave up at that point. It was a long weekend, but we played 10 minutes strong against Snow, and that was a huge accomplishment. That team is strong from top to bottom.”
Despite the rough start to the season, Peters reiterated that there’s talent on the NWC roster, and he believes the wins will come.
“We have several players that are really stepping up,” Peters said. “Kailee Ingalls from Sheridan is performing really well for us; she’s really stepping in and starting to embrace the process. Defensively, Brandie Bedes has shown spots where she can definitely run with any of these teams. It’s just getting her mind turned on to where she’s seeing the play in front of her a little bit better. Drew Groll, she’s a vocal force back there.”
Cody’s Genevieve Sauers and Jules Novakovich are also beginning to step things up, and they will continue to improve as the team develops more offensive plays, according to Peters.
The Lady Trappers have a pair of strong keepers in Christina Lacek and Kenadee Jenkins, and though NWC has given up a lot of goals to begin the season, not all can be attributed to poor play in the net.
“Lacek does very well in there — she takes charge,” Peters said. “She makes the saves she’s supposed to. The ones that she’s not, I don’t think any keeper can make. She makes the good saves.”
A good keeper will build confidence in the defenders, giving them the knowledge that if they limit the shot angles and not give up perfect opportunities, the keeper will make the save.
“The trick is not to give the other team perfect opportunities; defend where we’re supposed to defend,” Peters said. “Kenadee Jenkins has also played well, she’s made some good saves. She’s learning the position as she goes, but she makes some very athletic saves.”
The Lady Trappers are on the road this weekend at the K2 Technologies Tournament in Gillette; the NWC men’s team will open their season in the same tournament. Peters said the Lady Trappers will match up well against the teams they are scheduled to play, Western Nebraska on Saturday and Northeastern Junior College on Sunday.
“The first few games, we were really playing a little bit of kickball. We need to be finding people’s feet when we kick the ball,” he said. “They’re starting to get that slowly, but it’s taking some time. It’s one of those things where we played extremely good teams, so we’ll really be able to see that offensive end when we’re not playing top-20 teams in the country.”